Loops, grooves and breakbeats: Powerful sonic building blocks, and great inspirational triggers. No matter what style of music you’re into, you can be sure there’s a loop out there that can spice your track up a little, or even lift it to completely new heights. But handling loops and grooves equals hard work. Hours of pitching and stretching just to get a loop to fit your song’s tempo and timing. And if you need to change the key, you’re in for even more work. In the end, your loops are controlling you, instead of vice versa. But help is on its way. From Propellerhead Software comes a suite of programs that gives you full creative control over your looped material!
Welcome to ReCycle 2.1 – The Ultimate Toolkit for Sampled Grooves.
What does ReCycle do?
ReCycle goes way beyond simply solving groove problems and cleaning up your loop act – it’s a highly creative tool that helps you make the most of your grooves. In simple terms, ReCycle lets you do with sampled loops what you can do with beats programmed from individual drum sounds – like alter the tempo, or replace sounds and process them individually. ReCycle turns concrete-rigid loops into musical modeling clay, allowing you, the loopist, to do pretty much what you desire.
How is it done?
Start out with a regular audio file or sample, preferably one of a rhythmic nature. Load the groove into ReCycle, and the program will “look” at the groove, analyze it, and break it up into its rhythmic components. Each part is called a “slice”. The process itself is fully automated, but once the slices are there, they are yours to move, audition or delete, using the programs on-screen tools and controls. Other tools allow you to set the length, attack and decay of the slices, and to change your grooves’ overall tempo or pitch, without one affecting the other! It’s not magic, but it’s probably as close as you can get.
Then what?
The next step is of course to bring your improved groove into one of your songs. At this point, the procedures differ depending on your equipment and preferred working method:
If you like, you can use ReCycle simply as a problem solver for loops. Load a drum loop into ReCycle, set a new tempo or pitch, and save the results as a new file. Or load up any groove, and use ReCycle’s on-screen signal processors: Compressor, EQ and Transient Designer, to give it some punch and distinction. Anything you choose to do in ReCycle can be applied to your loop, and saved as a new file.
To use your loop directly in Emagic Logic, Steinberg Cubase SX, Steinberg Nuendo or other audio sequencers supporting REX2 files, all you need to do is save your sliced-up loop as a REX2 file and import it onto an Audio Track in your sequencer. The imported loop will play back like the original, but now you can change the tempo freely, and you will have full control over the original slices! Silence, move or replace individual hits, change volume and panning – your loop has come to life!
To use recycled loops directly in a REX2 compatible software sampler such as the NN-XT and Dr. Rex modules in Propellerhead Software’s Reason, Steinberg Halion or Emagic EXS24 (see full list below), just follow the same procedure: save your improved loop as a REX2 file containing the samples/slices, and open up the file from your sampler. Quantize it, change the tempo, retune or replace the sounds – Total Loop Control!
ReCycle can also export sliced loops in a other popular formats such as SoundFont2 and SampleCell II formats, along with a MIDI file to play the exported loop back with it’s original timing.
Real life applications
Tempo and Timing
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Automate the tedious process of making a sampled groove fit the tempo of your song.
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Change the tempo of a groove without altering its pitch.
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Change the timing of the groove – you can even quantize it!
Tuning and Detuning
Remodel the Groove!
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Remove and/or replace any sound inside the sampled groove without altering its feel.
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Create variations and fills out of a single loop.
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Alter the volume of the individual sounds in the groove.
Processing
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Use ReCycle’s Envelope, Transient Shaper and EQ to energize your loop.
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Send different sounds in the groove to different sampler outputs or audio channels, for individual processing.
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Alter the ambience of a groove.
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Automatically normalize the levels of the sounds in the groove for optimum sound quality.
Go beyond the Loop!
New in ReCycle 2.1
With multiple undos, true Mac OS X support, and full 24-bit resolution, new ReCycle 2.1 makes your sampled loops and grooves more manageable then ever. ReCycle 2.1 lets you slice up your samples into rhythmical sound chunks and create your own REX2 files, a format used and recognized by virtually all audio sequencers and software samplers on the market. Don’t have all those other programs? Don’t worry. Included in the ReCycle 2.1 application suite are three separate pieces of software – ReCycle, Reason Adapted and Reload – allowing ReCycle users to turn their REX:ed files into music, right out of the box!
New in ReCycle 2.1
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Mac OS X Support
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True Windows XP Support
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Multiple Undos
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Full 24-bit resolution
The ReCycle toolkit Reason Adapted and Reload included
Your favourite loop chopping software now comes with Reason Adapted and Reload included, for instant cutting, converting and composing.
Sampler Support
- Akai S1000/S1000PB/S1100/S1100PB, S2000/S3000 including "i" and "XL" versions.
- Akai S5000/6000 via AKP files
- Digidesign Sample Cell 1 & 2
- Ensoniq EPS/EPS 16+, ASR-10, ASR-88
- E-Mu Esi-32, SIC, e64 and all other modules running the EOS operating system
- Kurzweil K2000/K2500 incl. X, R, & S models
- Roland s-760
System requirements
Macintosh
- Any PowerPC processor, 16 Mb RAM, MacOS 8.0 or later, CD-rom drive, 640x480 or larger display with at least 256 colors.
- 16-bit audio (not required) and Apple Sound Manager 3.2.1 or later (included)
- For communication with MIDI samplers you need a MIDI interface compatible with OMS 2.3.6 (OMS is included) or later and/or a SCSI interface depending on the sampler you are using.
PC
- Intel Pentium processor (66 MHz or faster) , 16 Mb RAM, Windows 95/98, NT, 2000, or XP, CD-rom drive, 640x400 or larger display with at least 256 colors.
- 16-bit audio card (not required) with either MME or DirectX drivers. DirectX 6 is included and is preferred for best performance.
- For communication with MIDI samplers you need a MME compatible MIDI interface and/or an Adaptec compatible SCSI adapter card, depending on the sampler you are using.
This product may not currently be compatible with Windows Vista or Intel Macs. Please check compatibility with manufactures before purchase (manufacturer link can be found at the bottom of the page)
